A Negro beauty in a nurse's uniform opened the door to Bolan's third buzz. Her eyes recoiled somewhat as the black-clad figure stepped inside the private clinic, then she giggled and told him, "I didn't know you in your soul underwear."

"How's the patient?" Bolan asked her.

"Doing fine," the nurse reported, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Doctor looked in on him at four o'clock. He's going to be all right."

"Is he sedated?"

She shook her head. "No, he's resting easily."

"It's very important that I talk to him, Mrs. Thomas."

The woman pursed her lips as she studied Bolan's face, then she smiled and told him, "Just a sec. I'll ask Doctor."

Bolan watched her disappear through a doorway off the lobby, and again he reflected upon Lyons' determination to remain in his role. The clinic was situated in the city's Westside, in the Negro district. There was a personal relationship of some sort between Lyons and the doctor, and the cop had insisted upon being brought here. The setup seemed ideal to Bolan, and apparently Lyons was in the best of hands. Still… Bolan had an uneasiness about the thing.

A tired looking black man appeared in the doorway, wearing pajamas and a cotton robe. He looked Bolan up and down, then wryly commented, "I see you're dressed for destruction. Why do you want to talk to Carl?"

"It's urgent," Bolan assured him.

"He's resting good. Can't it wait at least until daylight?"

"It can. But maybe I can't."

The doctor understood. He stared at the visitor through a brief silence, then he jerked his head and said, "Okay. Don't take too long."

Bolan said, "Sure," and went on along the corridor and into Lyons' room. The doctor's wife had gotten there ahead of him and she was quietly rousing the ailing cop.

"You have a visitor, Carl," he heard her say.

A dim lamp on a side table had the room in soft shadows. The cop was flat on his back, no pillows. His left arm was tied to the bed and he was getting an intraveinous drip-injection from a bottle of clear fluid in a bedside stand.

Bolan moved in on the other side. Lyons looked him over and said, "You're blitzing."

"Softly," Bolan replied.

The nurse cautioned, "Don't get him too excited," and she made a quiet exit.

"What's up?" the cop asked.

"Maybe a hell of a lot. First, though, I brought you a gift."

Bolan produced Vito Apostinni's black book and placed it in Lyons' free hand. "Don't try to look at it now. It's the black money ledger on the Gold Duster operation."

"How the hell did you get that?" Lyons asked with a grin.

"I traded Vito his life for it."

The cop's grin faded. "Some trade."

"Yeah. Uh, your funny man is okay. For now. He told me about ASA and the show biz muscle."

Lyons smiled and commented, "It's hard to keep a secret in this town."

"But that's not the all of it, is it? It goes a lot bigger than Anders, doesn't it?"

Lyons gave him an odd look and replied, "I can't talk about that, Mack. New subject, please."

Bolan said, "New subject, hell. My game is survival, remember? I need everything I can possibly use."

"There's a place where friendship ends," the cop muttered stubbornly.

A smile formed at Bolan's lips and stayed there, unable to influence the eyes. A cop's ethics could be a curious thing, he was thinking. A cop like Lyons would bust his own mother for pandering, then promise her immunity from prosecution if she'd turn state's evidence against her pimp. It was a game called "law enforcement" — a very close cousin to the game of survival — and Bolan could understand games like these.

"I didn't come begging," he said. "I came trading. I gave you Vito's book. Now what the hell am I getting in return?"

The cop sighed. The grin returned. "Not much," he promised.

"California carousel," Bolan said, getting right to the heart. "I figured it was an operational code. It's not. So what is it?"

"It's a mob circuit. One big wheel, turning endlessly."

"Turning what?"

"Everything. Talent, sex, narcotics, contraband, black money, extortion, corpses. You name it, the carousel's turning it."

"How does L.A. get into the action? I mean, what's your interest?"

"We have a seaport, remember? Also the major international airport in the west. And we have a border with a foreign country. Do I have to lay it all out?"

"So what's new?" Bolan asked. "That's been going on since year one."

The cop sighed. "What's new is the combination."

After a moment of silence, Bolan said, "Okay, I'm listening."

"You can quit listening. This is where you go to hell, buddy."

Bolan whistled softly. "That big, eh? Top Secret and all that?"

"Something like that," Lyons growled.

"Okay, just clue me. Then I'll drop something on you that's maybe bigger."

The cop's eyes were speculative, wary. Quietly, he said, "Get out of here, Mack."

"I actually do have something."

Lyons let his breath all the way out and sighed, "Okay. Vegas is where the brass ring is at. That help you any?"

"Sure. But I still want to know about that combination."

"You tell me something interesting first," Lyons suggested.

"The eye of the brass ring in Vegas is the Gold Duster," Bolan said quietly.

"Do tell. Why d'you think I broke my body there?"

"But it's like the eyepiece of a telescope. Another ring is at the other end, much larger, a hell of a lot more important."

Lyons was interested. "And what is that?" he asked.

Bolan smiled. "What's that new combination?"

The cop smiled back and muttered, "Bastard."

"Are we playing or not?"

"Red China," Lyons said.

"What?"

"Yeah. How's that for a mob combination? And the trade, we hear, is lively."

"In what?"

"In everything. It's developing into the largest invisible market in the world."

Bolan said, "Well it figures."

"What figures?"

"That other brass ring. It's within shouting distance of Havana."

The cop's eyes flashed. "Miami?"

Bolan shook his head. "Not the way I hear it, but Miami is probably somewhere in the loop. My information says that San Juan is the eye of the needle. They're calling it the Caribbean carousel."

Lyons chewed the news for a moment, then asked, "How good is your information?"

"Practically a dying confession," Bolan told him. "Straight from the scared-out-of-his-skull lips of Vito Apostinni."

"A guy will say anything at a time like that, Mack." . "Not that guy. He thought I was a dead man, too, and it was quite a poker game. No… I think he was leveling."

"It makes sense," the cop admitted. He sighed and said, "Bye bye, Bolan. The fuzz is getting fuzzy-headed."

"One more thing. It's a long route from Peking to Tommy Anders. What's the angle there?"

The cop's voice was weary in the reply. "That was our best route of entry, and I drew the short straw. Anders is in big trouble — and I've been worried about him. I mean, he's an okay guy — lots of guts — and I'd hate to see him a casualty of this mess. I mean…"

"You mean you've been using him," Bolan said. "And now it's hurting."

Lyons shrugged with his eyebrows. "Name of the game," he replied. "That isn't the whole thing, Mack. It's a rotten picture all the way, and the show business angle is as scary as any. The mob is clawing their way into Hollywood even. If the movie industry thinV they're in trouble now, just wait until the mob starts gangbanging 'em."

"How does, that fit into the carousel thing?"

Lyons frowned and said, "Hell, how doesn't it figure? Movies are big business. Distributing and exhibiting the finished product is even bigger. Once the mob has control in that arena they've got the most beautiful damn carousel you ever saw — for any damn kind of game they choose to play. Anything from popcorn concessions to theatre equipment, box office skim, and commercial dates with the starlets."